The Book of the Damned

ization of a department store, or the development of a nation: that all are assimilative, or organizing, or systematizing

external sounds in the mind of a dreamer could not continue to exist in a dreaming mind, because that touch of relative realness would be of awakening and not of dreaming. Science is the attempt to awaken to realness, wherein it is attempt to find regularity and uniformity. Or the regular and uniform would be that which has nothing external to disturb it. By the universal we mean the

upon such subjects, but attempt, in a dreaming mind, to systematize such appearances would be movement towar

th, from externality, is as unsettling and as unwelcome to Science as-tin horns blowing in upon a musician's relatively symmetric composition-flies ali

y for itself, and could not continue to "exist" in intermediateness, if it should succeed, any more than could the born still at the same time be the uterine,

dy, and something not to th

ut, also, that, in Intermediateness, n

ense: also neither is absolutely non-existent, and, according to our t

et of

's another

power over

early rea

our data of them have a higher approximation to realness than have the dogmas of thos

e-they pass away. In 1859, the thing to do was to accept Darwinism; now many biologists are revolting and trying to

ttest

eant by t

ngest; not t

tupidity every

ining fitness except in t

is only another n

win

rvivors

s massing of supposed data, and its attempted coherence approximate more highly t

ever proved that t

the earth

an the moon. If the periphery of the shadow is curved-but the convex moon-a s

th is round. It was not required: only that with a higher seeming of positiveness than that of his opponents, he sho

st quarter of the 20th century, the expression that beyond this earth are-o

that all yellow rains and yellow snows are colored with pollen from this earth's pine trees. Symons' Meteorological

27, 1877, at Peckloh, Germany, in which four kinds of organisms, not pollen, were the col

ols. They may have been

ing fancy

ne of them is upon a fall of pollen. I said, to begin with, that our methods would be the methods of theologians and scientists, and they always begin with an appearance of lib

ical instance of this dogm

bucketful upon a vessel, one "windless" night in June, in Pictou Harbor, Nova Scotia. The write

of Mt. Blanc; atheists at a prayer meeting; ice in India. For instance, chemical analysis can reveal that almost any dead man was poisoned with arsenic, we'll say, because there is no stomach without some iron, lead, tin, gold, arsenic in it and of it-which, of course, in a broader sense, doesn't

ctou sent a sample to the Editor of the Jour

say that this substance "contained" pollen. He disregards "nitrogen, ammonia, and an animal odor," and says that the substance was pollen. For the sake of our thirty or forty tokens of liberality, or pseudo-liberality, if we can

nimal-matter

that we'd put ourselves in t

t for the fall of ani

ouldn'

hink of most of us as de

nklin Ins

e Technical Institute of Genoa, and Prof. Castellani, a yellow substance. But the microscope revealed num

Rendus

or upon April 30, May 1 and May 2, in France and Spain, that it carbonized and spread the odor of

s of tons of this ma

harred ani

ary space several hundred years ago-effect of tim

t's all. M. Bouis says that this substance was not pollen; the vastness of the fall makes acceptable that it was not pollen; still, the resinous residue does suggest polle

's Magazi

at Naples. It had an earthy, insipid taste, and is described as "unctuous." When heated, this matter turned brown, then black, then red. Acc

itants of

were heard

ell from

nd to me they seem-rather brutal?-or not associable

-rains as black as a deluge

entific Discovery, 1850, and the Annual Register, 1849. It fell upon a district of 400

d, April 30, 1887-"thick, black

907. (Symons' Met. Mag. 43-2.) "It left a mos

, March 2, 1908-cloud of soot that had come from South

in Symons' Met. Mag. 33-40, to clouds of soot from the

vast celestial super-oceanic, or inter-planetary vessels that come near this earth and discharge volumes of smoke at times. We're only supposing such a thing as that now, because, conventionally, we are beginning modestly and tent

ossible to distinguish between animal and vegetable in some infusoria-but hippopotamus and violet. For all practical purpose

e great manufac

the conventional explanation here, that Nature, 85-451, says of this rain that in certain

may look black. This is simply denying that a

s from great manu

re, 188

Cape of Good Hope, a rain so black a

into other things. We find that every departure from one merger is entrance upon another. At the Cape of Good Hope, vast volumes of smoke from great manufacturing centers, as an e

strong, real, and distinct: so, in aesthetics, it is recognized that diversity in unity is higher beauty, or approximation to Beauty, than is simpler unity; so the logicians feel that agreement of diverse data constitute greater convincingness, or strength, than that of mere parallel instances: so to Herbert Spencer th

later. According to the correspondent, a black rain had fallen in the Clyde Valley, March 20, 1828: then again March 22, 1828. According to Natur

k rains

. James Rust (Sc

at Carluke, 140 miles from Slains, May 1, 1862

w have, for black rains, a concomitant that is irreconcilable with origin from factory chimneys. Whatever it may have been the quantity of this substance was so enormous that, in Mr. Rust's opinion, to have produced so much of it would have required the united output of all the smelting works in

rresponded, in time, with ord

r. Rust, corresponded with no known

e Pour To

d January, 1866, four more blac

unscrupulous, orthodoxy than Mr. Rust's, that of the eight black rains,

but at least my gregariousness is satisfied in associating here with the preposterous-or this writer, and those who think in his rut, have to say that they can think

distant volcano, showing the same precise preference,

exploding meteorites and their débris: preciseness

ic trade-route: it might receive débris fro

mitants of

, as of wagons, heard for upward of an hour without ceasing," July 16, 18

, near Worcester, April 26: that a week later, or May 3, it had fallen again: another account of black rain, upon the 28th of April, near Church Shetton, so inte

e it is orthodoxy to attribute the black precipitat

Meteors

accompanied by "shocks li

losophical Jo

d at the climax of intense dark

ra

hod

sirocco, from th

the Sahara. When I first took this matter up, I came across assurance after assurance, so positive to this effect, that, had I not been an Intermediatist, I'd have looked no further. Samples collected from a rain at Genoa-s

ter the scientific or theological method, anything can be identified with anyth

, swept up in African whirlwinds, that's assuasive to all the irritations that occur to those cloistered minds that must repose in the concept of a snug, isolated, little world, free from contact with cosmic wickednesses, safe from stellar guile,

ck: I accept that the

eterogeneity, and instability. There are no chemical elements. It seems acceptable that Ramsay and others have settled that. The chemical elements are only another d

f course attributed to Australian whirlwinds, but, according to the Monthly Weather Review, 32-365, there was a haze all the way to the Philippines, also as f

th of England was a dumpi

of a red rain that fell near the coast of Newfoundland, early in 1890: "It would be very remarkable if this was Sahara dust." Mr. Clayton said that the matter examined by him was "merely wind-borne dust from the roads and lanes of Wessex." This opinion is typical of all scientific opinion-or theological opinion-or feminine opinion-all very well except for what it disregards. The most charitable thing I can think of-because I think it gives us a broader tone to rel

relates only to the local. We metaphysicians, of course,

her chemists, there is an analysis in Nature, 68-54, giving water and organic matter at 9.08 per cent. It'

prior to February 19, there had been dust storms in the Sahara-disregarding that in that great region there's always, in som

o contend with is some other authoritativeness. W

exp

March

is-36 per cent

, one of the differing chemists explains. He says that his ana

so damned as we were, if we find ourselves in a gracious and tolerant mood toward the powers th

e, 68

it was 23.49 per cent w

sand from an African desert-but

sand from an African desert, after de

, omitting the obvious objection that in most parts the Sahara

in that case it would be no supposititious, or doubtfully identified whirl

. Met. So

e Atlantic Ocean, midway between Southampton and the Barbados. The calculation is given that, in England alone, 10,000,000 tons of matter had fallen. It had fallen in Switzerland (Symons' Met. Mag., March, 1903). It had fallen in Russia

sex exp

rsal; and that even if we could think as wide as Universality, that would not be requital to the cosmic quest-which is not for Truth, but for the local that is true-not to universalize the local, but to

l things, all pseudo-things partake of the underlying, or are only different expressions, degrees, or aspects of the un

and theological method, the substance that fell, February, 1903, could be identifie

from a barrel of sugar, or dust

ical Society, 30-57-or we'll see whether my notion that a chemist could have iden

and silky to the touch and slightly iridescent"; "gray"; "red-rust color"; "reddish raindrops and g

yellowish cast in one place, reddish somewhe

ce if there were really anyt

ed in advance, because only to see is to see with a prejudice, setti

from one part of town. D

cience but We

that approximation should be higher: that metaphysics is su

deceive for a moment: but that in an "existence" endeavoring to become real, it represents that endeavor, and

emistry is as impositi

n

ss than does alchemy, for instance, and so drove out alchem

o state a real and unmodified

olored by sands fro

itivist acce

re colored by sands f

rom other terre

serts-also from aerial regions too indefinite or

of matter that fell upon Australia, Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean and Europe

wessicality by accepting that there have b

eive of. The prime resistance to this endeavor is the refusal of the rest of the universe to be damned, excluded, disregarded, to receive Christian Science treatment, by something else so attempting. Although

ri

the gravitational relat

er of t

ations of hydrogen and o

ci

commercial and

in be without base

live witho

expresses those relations in the first place. Or that a Science can have seeming, or survive in Intermediateness,

in our quasi-state, if we accept that in it the co-existence of two or more wholes

their dream of

r dream of "art

an economic and sociologic sense, if, in that sense, nothing has justification for being, unless it serve, or function for, or express the relations of, some higher aggregate. So Science functions fo

rains terrified many persons, and were so unsettling to large populations, that Scien

of blood"

nly of water colored by sa

azzling white" desert or not, have wrought such good effects, in a sociologic sense, even though

century; that most of us have grown up so that su

ll from the sky upon New York Cit

argely, a return, though with many modifications, to the superstitions of the past, I think I feel considerable aloofness to the idea of rains of blood. Just at

inter-planet

l bat

of super-vessels, wrecked

ter, it fell again. Whatever this substance may have been, when burned, the odo

nt kinds of aerial cargoes-there have been red rains t

Philosop

it would have been deposited, if the substance had been diluted instead of concentrated. Experiments were made, and various reagents did cast precipitates, but other than sand. The chemists concluded that the rain-water contained muriate of cobalt-which is not very enlightening: t

11, 1872: described in the Chemical News, 25-300, as a "peculiar substa

4, 1873, in Tuscany. (No

at Oudon, France, Dec. 19, 1903. (

re, 188

ll, in Russia, June 14, 1880, red hailstones

e, 34

April 17, 1886, had fallen hailstones, some red, some blue, some whitish: informant said to have been

sent a translation from an Italian newspaper: that a red rain had fallen in

m a land where terrifying red rains are uncommon, does not feel this necessity. He writes: "I am by no means satisfied that the rain was of sand and water." H

ientifique

, in Cochin China, a substance

de Chimi

ous, red matter fe

and recur throughout this book. It is a factor that makes for speculation so revolutionar

of Facts

ter from Prof. Campi

., in the northwestern part of Siena, a

shower fell a

er, the red ra

y another r

e extraor

in "exactly the sam